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Technology foresight (TF) is increasingly used by governments, funding agencies, R&D institutions and private companies as a tool for strategy development, prioritisation of R&D funds, and learning. Although the Nordic Council of Ministers aims at"developing Nordic region in next 10 years as the most attractive region in terms of education, research and industry", there seem to be no effective mechanisms capable of embracing the various activities and initiatives at Nordic level. The reportanalyses the potentials of TF in building a Nordic knowledge region. On-going TF activities in the Nordic countries are described as well as the prospects for Nordic TFs. The potentials of a Nordic TF are closely connected with spatial proximity andshared values, as well as with a willingness to exchange experience and to learn from each other. On the other hand, some doubtful concerns stem from the economic and social differences among the Nordic countries. Nordic foresight cooperation may alsoremain as a distant academic exercise if proper links to political and economic decisions cannot be made and maintained. A technology foresight exercise might serve different institutions of the innovation system and the society at large at the sametime. The report recommends: 1. The establishment of a Nordic forum for technology foresight practitioners and researchers. 2. The creation of a common follow-up system for relevant international technology foresight exercises. 3. The realisation oftechnology foresight exercises that involve participants from various Nordic countries (e.g. focusing on specific technologies or problem areas or in selected cross-border regions). ; In the globalised knowledge economy, with increased industrial and economic competition, intense pressure is put on companies to be adaptable and innovative. Private and public decisionmakers must cope with rapid technological developments by anticipating new opportunities and threats. This has intensified the search for proper tools that will create strategic intelligence in decision-making systems. In this context technology foresight exercises are regarded effective tools for "wiring up" the innovation system. Nordic technology foresight (TF) is defined as "systematic, future-oriented interaction processes contributing to shared visions concerning long-term technological developments. In the TF exercises, technological developments are examined in their real-world, economic and societal context, with attention to a wide pool of knowledge and the viewpoints of various interest groups. The processes can be broad-scope or more focused. The purpose is to facilitate communication between the interest groups and to increase decision-makers' and key actors' knowledge base, so that desirable technological developments can be supported with relevant Nordic strategies, decisions and actions. Both analyses and interaction are important in this respect". The Nordic countries have a long tradition of cooperation within research, education, and innovation. Although the Nordic Council of Ministers aims at "developing Nordic region in next 10 years as the most attractive region in terms of education, research and industry", there seem to be no effective mechanisms capable of embracing the various activities and initiatives at Nordic level. Here a Nordic technology foresight may be a promising tool in building a Nordic knowledge region. By increasing Nordic competence and competitiveness, and by creating critical mass behind specific proposals, a Nordic TF may act as a gear change between national research and development activities and the larger European research system within Nordic priority areas. In the Nordic countries governmental institutions, academia and private institutions have embarked on technology foresight activities, though with varying degrees of intensity and at different speeds. The rationale for Nordic technology foresight activities rests on the common values created through a common history and culture and a well consolidated Nordic collaboration within research and innovation. The potentials of a Nordic technology foresight are closely connected with spatial proximity and shared values, as well as with a willingness to exchange experience and to learn from each other. On the other hand, some doubtful concerns stem from the economic and social differences among the Nordic countries. Nordic foresight cooperation may also remain as a distant academic exercise if proper links to political and economic decisions cannot be made and maintained. A technology foresight exercise might serve different institutions of the innovation system and the society at large at the same time. The report recommends: 1. The establishment of a Nordic forum for technology foresight practitioners and researchers. 2. The creation of a common follow-up system for relevant international technology foresight exercises (including monitoring of selected trends and early signals). 3. The realisation of technology foresight exercises that involve participants from various Nordic countries (e.g. focusing on specific technologies or problem areas or in selected cross-border regions).

Contents -- Summary -- Present market status -- Comparison and recommendations -- Abbreviations -- 1. Introduction -- 1.1 Methodology -- 1.2 What is Energy Performance Contracting -- 1.3 Structure -- 2. Denmark -- 2.1 The EPC market in Denmark -- 2.1.1 Short history -- 2.1.2 Number of projects -- 2.1.3 The EPC Providers -- 2.1.4 The EPC Clients -- 2.1.5 The EPC Facilitators -- 2.1.6 Summary -- 2.2 National characteristics -- 2.2.1 The national EPC model -- 2.2.2 Legal and financial support schemes -- 2.2.3 A typical EPC project -- sector, size, savings -- 2.2.4 The most recent projects

Background: General practice systems in the Nordic countries share certain common features. The sector is based on the Nordic model of a tax-financed supply of services with a political objective of equal access for all. The countries also share the challenges of increased political expectations to deliver primary prevention and increased workload as patients from hospital care are discharged earlier. However, within this common framework, primary care is organized differently. This is particularly in relation to the private-public mix, remuneration systems and the use of financial and non-financial incentives. Objective: The objective of this paper is to compare the differences and similarities in primary care among the Nordic countries, to create a mapping of the future plans and reforms linked to remuneration and incentives schemes, and to discuss the pros and cons for these plans with reference to the literature. An additional objective is to identify gaps in the literature and future research opportunities. Results/Conclusions: Despite the many similarities within the Nordic health care systems, the primary care sectors function under highly different arrangements. Most important are the differences in the gate-keeping function, private versus salaried practices, possibilities for corporate ownership, skill-mix and the organisational structure. Current reforms and political agendas appear to focus on the side effects of the individual countries' specific systems. For example, countries with salaried systems with geographical responsibility are introducing incentives for private practice and more choices for patients. Countries with systems largely based on private practice are introducing more monitoring and public regulation to control budgets. We also see that new governments tends to bring different views on the future organisation of primary care, which provide considerable political tension but few actual changes. Interestingly, Sweden appears to be the most innovative in relation to introducing new incentive schemes, perhaps because decisions are made at a more decentralised level.Published: April 2016.

Research on societal security issues has developed separately in the Nordic countries. The recent emphasis at the political level on Nordic solidarity in the face of disasters, acts of violence and cyber attacks has created a clear demand for collaborative research across the region. NordForsk has supported a pre-study framing a programme on the subject.

Abstract
This paper investigates herding behavior of investors in three frontier Nordic countries from July 1, 2002 until July 30, 2021, under different market conditions and during three crises that occurred in this period. As estimation methods, we use both OLS and quantile regression and determine that both up and down market, high and low volatility induce a weak herding behavior for at least one quantile in almost all Nordic countries examined, except for Latvia. At the same time, we find that crises determine a more prominent herding behavior in Nordic countries, but do not influent the behavior of investors from Latvia, that tend to remain rational even in stressful conditions.

High growth enterprises are important contributors to employment and wealth creation in the Nordic countries. Especially,established medium-sized enterprises thatinnovate and scale-up are a driving force behind sustainable economic growth. Notonly by the scale-ups themselves, but alsooften by ensuring the coordination, upgrading and participation in (global) supplychains of smaller enterprises.1 Increasingly,governments focus on enabling conditionsfor the scaling up of enterprises as a leverto boost productivity growth and competitiveness as well as to create high quality jobs in knowledge based economies. This attention on growth enterprises such as scale-ups has created a need for further statistical evidence about the actual contri-bution in terms of numbers and economic performance of fast growing enterprises, such as scale-ups, see Box 1 for definition of scale-ups.Nordic Innovation has commissioned the Nordic statistical institutes to produce statistics on scale-ups supplementing the existing official business statistics which applies a slightly different definition thanused in official statistics, see Box 2. This publication is the third publication describing scale-ups in the Nordic countries. Comparison with Eurostat definition of scale-up enterprises The definition applied in this analysis is stricter than the official definition of high growth enterprises used by Eurostat and the European statistical offices as the annualgrowth rate is set to 20 per cent instead of 10 per cent and also adding an annual turn-over threshold of 2 million EUR in the start year of the growth period, see Methodologicalannex. Furthermore, the enterprises shall employ 10 or more full time equivalent numberof employees (hereafter employment (FTE)) in the start year of observation. This definition has been chosen in order to focus on the fastest growing established enterprises,the so-called scale-ups. But at the same time less strict compared to the official definitionas scale-ups not only by employment but also by turnover ...

After the crisis of 2008–2009 the Nordic countries faced a new economic recession in 2012. It was caused by a decrease of demand on foreign markets that resulted in decrease of Nordic countries' exports. Economic growth in 2012 and 2013 was supported by growing consumption of the households and private incomes. Investments showed weak increase (except Norway). Unemployment was still at high level, inflation was low. Public finances showed deficit (except Norway), while balances of payments were positive (except Finland). Interest rates were at very low level.

A selection of macroeconomic models used, or intended for, economic forecasting or policy analysis in the four Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden), is presented in this volume. New features and model applications are discussed and the models used by the Ministries of Finance are evaluated, with special attention to the role of relative prices and their treatment of the supply side. In addition there is a systematic comparison of results from model simulations on the main macroeconomic models in the four Nordic countries. The papers fall naturally into two sections. In Part One the focus is on the short-to-medium term models; in Part Two the focus switches to a presentation of three models that may all be classified as applied general equilibrium (AGE) models.

This paper provides a descriptive analysis of the level of and change in cigarette smoking, excessive alcohol consumption and body weight in Nordic countries and compares them with non-Nordic OECD countries. Our results show that the average prevalence of daily smokers is significantly lower for Nordic countries compared to non-Nordic countries. Four out of five Nordic countries are below the non-Nordic average. However, for alcohol consumption and obesity, it is more difficult to see a clear difference between Nordic countries and non-Nordic countries. Sweden ranks relatively low on all three health behaviors, while alcohol consumption is relatively high in Finland and Denmark. Smoking rates are relatively high in Norway, while the obesity rate is relatively high in Iceland. We conclude that although Nordic populations are often perceived as relatively homogeneous in terms of cultural and political aspects, there are interesting differences in health behaviors within these Nordic countries. These differences need more focus in health-economics research and may have a significant potential in light of the availability of health surveys and administrative register data that can sometimes be linked at the individual level. Such Nordic analyses may, in general, help to move the research front forward and can also be used to predict changes in population health and to study the effectiveness of health economic policies.Published: April 2016.

In autumn 2008, the Nordic countries entered a deep economic crisis. It was caused by decrease in demand on foreign and domestic markets (especially in Denmark). Its main results were the reduction of exports, production, private consumption and investments. The unemployment increased. Interest rates and prices of houses nosedived. Public finances became adverse (except Norway).

An examination of the reception given to the New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad) in Europe, especially the Nordic countries, notes that the European Union's support is based on Nepad's emphasis on democracy, the rule of law, good governance, & human rights, values that are consistent with those of the post-Cold War international community. The importance of Nepad's basic premise of African ownership is stressed. Although official perceptions in the Nordic countries of recent developments in Africa are positive, conversations with a number of researchers & civil servants elicited both skepticism about Nepad's chances to succeed, & criticism of Nepad for being too elite-driven. However, the amount of media attention given to Africa in the Nordic countries has increased significantly & Nepad can enhance European attitudes by exhibiting both positive examples of development & intolerance toward non-democratic behavior. The need to improve the quality of media reporting on African issues & to continue emphasizing Nepad's overall vision of a more decent life for all Africans is discussed. J. Lindroth

Political science has traditions in Finland and Sweden, but is a new academic discipline in Denmark, Iceland and Norway where it was introduced only after World War II. The differences in development, however, have not produced differences in style and outlook. Nordic political science has been and still is strongly dependent on basic influences from the US, and descriptions of problem areas and research approaches in the Nordic countries may well be carried out in terms of similarities rather than dissimilarities. Recent discussions about the state of the art have expressed concern about tendencies towards scientific disintegration, manifest in the institutionalization of political-science subfields and in the growth of so-called sector research based on short-term political priorities.